Earth & Sky (The Earth & Sky Trilogy) (25 page)

Except he doesn’t.

The man jerks back with a shout, but he’s not fast enough. A hollow click echoes through the glade, and Jeanant tugs the man’s hand toward his head. A streak of light burns into my vision, shattering against Jeanant’s temple.

His body shudders. Then his arms sag back against the grass. His head lolls, revealing a blotch of seared-black skin. His eyes, the eyes that blazed with so much purpose just a few seconds ago, stare blankly at the sky.

30.

J
eanant’s voice—my name—is still ringing in my ears. I stare at him, as if he might roll over, snatch up his time cloth, and leap away. But he doesn’t. His body lies there, still and limp, as the Enforcer whose blaster he grabbed kneels down and presses a small device against Jeanant’s neck. The man straightens up, sounding upset as he reports the result to the woman. She snaps something at him, and they bicker back and forth. Over who’s at fault? How they’ll explain this?

And Jeanant doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe.

I press my hand to my mouth. My eyes have flooded. He called out to me, and I didn’t—

He couldn’t have known I was watching, though. His gaze never once stopped on my tree.
Careful,
he said. He wasn’t crying for help. It was a warning, knowing I was probably close enough to hear. And a distraction, to buy himself a moment to go for the blaster.

He
had
the blaster. Why didn’t he try to escape?

I close my eyes, my mind replaying the scene. His hands on the blaster, while the Enforcer still gripped it. The woman beside him already starting to react.

It was only a slim chance. For him to have hit the woman well enough to disable her, to have managed to wrestle the blaster completely away from the man and shoot him too, before one of them stopped him . . . Only a slim chance, when it was the only chance he had to prevent himself from being taken for interrogation. I can already imagine him reasoning through his options, just as he tried to reason with me all of ten minutes ago, and deciding the risk of being forced to give up Thlo and the others and ruining everything was greater than the risk of losing just a couple parts of his weapon.

His words echo back to me.
I knew how this was going to end when I left Kemya.
He was so sure this was his fate, one way or another. And maybe he hoped if he were dead, the Enforcers would be too focused on that to search the area and find the part by the log.

If so, he was wrong. As I smear my tears across the sleeve of my borrowed Traveler shirt, the Enforcers stop arguing. The man pats down Jeanant’s clothes while the woman digs through his bag. She pulls out a gray cylinder about the length and width of my forearm with an exclamation. I can tell from the widening of the man’s eyes that it must be the last part of the weapon. Damn it.

The woman tucks the cylinder into a wide pouch at her hip. Then she starts to circle Jeanant’s body, scanning the ground, the trees. With each rotation, she moves closer to the edge of the glade. Closer to the log and its disturbed patch of earth.

My body goes rigid. I can’t let them take another part of the weapon. If they get that one too, Jeanant might have given up his life for nothing. I don’t know if the two parts we’ve already collected will be enough.

A sense of resolve rushes through me. I’m still working with him, even if he only ever saw himself as alone.

Just a few trees and a couple of bushes dot the slope between me and the log. There isn’t enough cover for me to sneak down there without the Enforcers seeing me. I need them to leave.

My thoughts dart back to the idea I had a few moments ago, before Jeanant’s shout and the blast. The Native American army. If I send them this way, the Enforcers will have to clear out, at least for long enough that I can dig up whatever Jeanant buried.

The man steps away from Jeanant’s body, and the woman barks what sounds like an order at him as she continues her ever-widening circuit of the glade. There’s no time to think—I have to do this
now
.

My leg aches as I turn around. Grasping my walking stick, I shuffle back down the slope. While I was crouched there, the numbness faded a bit more. With every step, a sharp tingle shoots up from my ankle. But as soon as I think I’m out of hearing, I push myself into a lopsided jog, shoving myself along with the stick, gritting my teeth against the pain. A fresh layer of sweat beads on my skin.

It wasn’t that far from here that I spoke to the Native scout, was it? I veer toward the river, trying not to wonder how close the American soldiers are now, how big a catastrophe I’ll cause by drawing the Native army out of their ambush. The image of a mass of chaotic figures, slashing and shooting, swims up through my mind.

Wrong
.

Panic slices through me. I pause, my chest heaving.

If I screw this up—if someone dies who shouldn’t—if I rewrite the family tree of every person in both armies—

And if I don’t?

I wanted to believe I could save everyone. Not let one more person die. But I was as wrong as Jeanant thinking he could bring about some perfect outcome if he just held all the variables perfectly in place. Life doesn’t work that way. After everything I’ve seen in the last couple days, I can say pretty definitively that life is messy, and inexact, and unfair, full of so many variables I could never take half of them into account. It’s terrifying, but thinking otherwise is just deluding yourself.

If Jeanant had just given me the rest of the weapon when I first met up with him here, he wouldn’t be lying there dead in the glade. I wouldn’t be risking the lives of everyone in my present, or risking my own life if I run into Kurra again. He was so sure his way was the best way, the only way. I think he was wrong about that too.

There was no
careful
enough to protect him. And maybe there isn’t a careful enough to protect me, or my family and friends. The shift I make now could wipe me out of existence. I could be killing dozens of people I know. But if I don’t do this, Win’s people could decide to wipe out billions at any moment, as long as the time field is in place. Everything will be
wrong
until the world itself falls apart, whether I’m around to feel it or not.

Jeanant’s speech is still true even if he faltered from it.
So
I
will take this chance.

My pulse evens out as I hurry on. I turn my head, absorbing shape, color, leaves, bark, and there—

A face. I stop. The scout I saw before is standing at his post by the same tree. He frowns when our gazes meet. My voice catches.

What I’m about to do, it’s not just chess pieces moved around on a board. The people in this present matter too. This is a human being whose life I’m planning to alter.

A human being whose brow is knitting as he jerks his chin toward the forest beyond us.

“What are you doing here again?” he says roughly. “Go on. This is a dangerous place.”

“It’s dangerous for you too,” I say, before I realize I’m going to speak. I remember Win’s comments about the battle. About the Native force nearly defeated, turning to their allies, turned away. “There’s so many of them coming—so many of you could be killed.”

“We know,” he says. “They will kill us either way. Better to die standing up. We will stand here as long as we can. Now go!”

He steps forward, reaching as if to propel me in the direction of the fort. I wobble backward. And I realize this is his choice too. His choice to be here at all, defending his people.

From anyone who threatens them.

“What if I saw some—if I saw Americans, soldiers, heading this way?” I say.

He grabs my wrist, so tight the bones pinch. “Soldiers? Where?”

“Over there.” I wave my stick. The image of the armies hurtling together flickers behind my eyes, making my heart thump. I clamp down on my panic.

Wait. It doesn’t have to be like that. Just because I’m taking this chance doesn’t mean I should throw everything to the wind. The Enforcers are as human as this man and his colleagues. It isn’t going to take a whole army to overwhelm them.

“There’s just two,” I add quickly. “I think they wanted to . . . to spy on you and report to the others. You just need a few people to scare them off.”

He hesitates, probably wondering if this is some elaborate trick. The Enforcers could already have found that spot by the log, be digging out that last part of the weapon. If I’m doing this, we have to go. So I blurt out one more thing.

“I think they’ve killed one of your men.”

It’s almost true. I know what side of this battle Jeanant would have been on.

The scout’s fingers squeeze my wrist, and then he releases me, pushing my arm away. For one wrenching moment I think it’s a dismissal. He hefts his rifle.

“Two?”

I nod. He turns and calls something quietly through the trees. Four more men with rifles emerge a short distance away. The scout motions them to join him with a few words of explanation in a language I don’t know. The other men stare at me. One of them purses his lips toward me and says something that doesn’t sound kind, but my scout cuts him off with a brusque retort.

“I’ll show you,” I say, hoping that will get us moving, and start toward the slope.

After a few lurching steps, I hear them following. They slip past me, their expressions dour, making less noise between the five of them than I do on my own. It feels like no time at all before I spot the hill with the bristling fir at its peak. My stomach flips over.

I’m really doing this. No turning back.

“Over there,” I whisper, indicating the slope. The scout draws his companions together for a brief discussion. Then they creep to and up the hill, rifles ready. I trail behind.

The Native soldiers pause at the top of the slope for no more than a second. Then the scout hollers, and they charge down the hill. Rifle fire crackles. I cringe, suddenly terrified I’ll hear that awful twang.

It doesn’t come. The soldiers’ feet pound into the glade. The Enforcers must be fleeing.

This is my chance.

I scramble up the slope, reaching the fir just in time to see the last of the Native soldiers racing into the forest on the other side of the glade. There’s no sign of the Enforcers. Jeanant’s body is still sprawled on the grass. Seeing him again, so limp and vacant, makes my legs lock up. I force myself onward.

I’m halfway down to the log when another shot peals out, and the stutter of answering fire echoes through the forest. Not the twanging sizzle of the Enforcers’ blasters. Regular gunfire.

I stop, peering across the glade. The Americans? Were they already that close? And I sent the Native soldiers straight into their ranks.

Rifle shots rattle between the trees. I bite my lip. There’s no way I can protect them now. I can only finish my own mission.

I skitter the rest of the way down through the dead leaves and pebbles, stumbling to a halt by the log. The patch of cleared dirt looks exactly the same as before. The Enforcers hadn’t found it yet, then. Exhaling shakily, I drop to my knees. I may only have a minute before they decide it’s safe to return.

Soil clogs my fingernails as I claw at the dirt. My nose and mouth prickle with the earthy smell of decay. I scoop aside handful after handful. Then my fingers jar against a hard surface.

Another sputter of gunfire reaches my ears, closer now. I grope along the hard edge of the object I’ve started to unearth. Working my thumb around its corner, I manage to wiggle it free.

It’s another slab of that plastic-like material, but this one is dirt brown instead of clear. And bigger, about the same size as my calculus textbook, with a seam around the top that suggests it can be opened.

Hoofbeats thunder over the ground somewhere in the forest, far too near for comfort. I heft the box under my arm. Someone shouts, another gun crackles, and a voice cries out.

I did what I had to do, I remind myself as I stagger back up the slope. But in that moment the throbbing of my ankle is nothing compared to the guilt searing through my chest.

The shots are echoing through the forest in quick succession now, mingled with bellows and groans and the occasional anxious whinny. I don’t know if the battle was supposed to start now anyway; I don’t know how much I’ve thrown history out of order. I just know if one of those bullets finds me before I deliver this box, there’ll be no good to balance out the harm I may have done. So I run as fast as my ankle allows, the bark of my walking stick scratching my palm.

Any second now, even if no one shoots
me
, one shift, one new death, could unravel my family’s entire thread through history. Will I just disappear if that happens?

I have to find Win first. That’s all I can worry about now.

The sounds of the battle recede until I can hardly hear them over my pounding heart. My foot has just crunched down on a twig when it occurs to me that it’s not just Win I need to be watching for. Kurra and her band of Enforcers are still lurking here. Now that I’ve left Jeanant and his Enforcers behind, I can’t count on them being doxed.

I slow down, scanning the forest. The faint rifle fire and shouts behind me won’t cover the sound of my passage. I set my feet around the sticks and looser pebbles, avoiding the shrubs that would scrape against my clothes.

Where would Win have gone, to find me after he was doxed? Where would he think I’d look for him?

The fort. That’s the only real landmark we saw together. It’s as good a possibility as any.

My gaze catches on an ivy-draped tree that feels familiar. I pad toward it. Now that I’m not racing headlong but taking in the landscape around me, other details I must have absorbed emerge: a crumbling stump, a moss-coated boulder, a bush sprouting pale yellow flowers.

The trail of fragmented memories leads me on a rambling path through the forest. After a couple of minutes, I spot the impression of a boot heel in a soft patch of dirt, pointing in the opposite direction. Mine, it looks like. It must be from when we were running away from Kurra—which was also away from the fort. I’m going the right way, then.

As I limp on, the humidity presses in with the day’s rising heat. The surface of the box slides in my damp grasp. At this rate, I’ll drop it if I have to run again. I glance down at myself. With a little wiggling, I work the box over my chest between the Traveler shirt and the T-shirt underneath. I tuck the bottom of the T-shirt up around the box and the bottom of the Traveler shirt into the tight waist of my skirt. It’s uncomfortable, but it seems secure enough.